Overalls
by Zoot Root
Summary: A collection of drabbles featuring Ellis. Mainly Ellis/Zoey, with hints of Nick/Ellis and Ellis/Rochelle. Ongoing.
1. One

He was alone.

Ellis felt his bottom lip quiver. He scolded himself. If he was going to make it, he had to keep composed.

He'd been backtracking to Savannah ever since the others died. It was the only thing he could think to do. Go back home. Now, seeing the ruin his city had become in his absence, he was starting to think he'd made a mistake.

His best weapon was familiarity. As he got deeper into the city, he began to recognize where he was. He could move quicker. He could hide faster.

Most of the special infected had left. There was no surviving life to feed on. All that remained in the skeleton of the city were the walking corpses of its former residents.

It wasn't long until his presence alerted the horde. They had been the sort of folks Ellis remembered seeing every day; passing them on the streets, waiting in line with them at the store, taking them for granted. Now they were all mad dogs, and he was slicing them up with a machete.

He trimmed the swarming infected and wiped splatters of blood from his eyes, then stopped to take in his surroundings. He'd made it to the city's rural outskirts.

Ellis didn't bother looking in the direction of his mother's house. She was dead. He didn't bother stopping at his house, it would be empty.

His destination was a trailer near the river. When he arrived, he was relieved to see it still looked well managed and fortified. He smiled and wondered why he had ever doubted his best friend's survival. Keith could survive anything!

Laughing, he ran past stacks of weapons and ammo, over a wall of sandbags and barbed wire. He narrowly missed a bear trap on his way to the door, where he pounded and shouted in greeting.

No answer.

He tried again with the same result. And again.

No answer.

Ellis rolled his eyes and used the butt of his shotgun to break the door off its hinges. A sickening smell rushed over him and he froze. He felt hope drain from him like air in a flat tire.

He turned his shotgun back around and loaded it with shaking hands. He called his friend's name.

No answer.

He stepped inside and saw his friend lying motionless under a flickering lamp.

Dead? Sleeping?

He called his friend's name a second time and crept closer. The body jerked and shot up. Keith turned to stare at Ellis with glazed, black eyes. He gurgled.

Ellis shot him without even thinking.


	2. Two

"Can I open my eyes now?"

"Not yet!" Zoey dragged Ellis a few more feet.

"This ain't gonna be somethin' gross is it? Or scary? 'Cause… I've kinda had enough'a both those things, y'know?"

Zoey scoffed. "No! Why would I show you that?'

"Well 'cause you're into monster movies and stuff. Can I open my eyes NOW?"

Zoey laughed. "Yeah, go ahead."

His eyelids fluttered apart to reveal a knocked over fireworks stand – piles of colorful pyrotechnics standing in the open air.

"Oh… my… God…" Ellis's mouth fell open, and then pulled into a wide grin.

Zoey chuckled. "Yeah, thought you might like it."

Ellis wasted no time. He took right to clawing through the piles, hooting and hollering.

"Did I ever tell you 'bout the time my buddy Keith tried to make his own fireworks?" Ellis said. He'd stuffed all the merch he could into his pockets, and was now handing Zoey a lit sparkler, as if it were a fresh rose.

"Yeah," Zoey said, accepting it. "But you can tell me again if you want."


	3. Three

"HELP! I'M DOWN!"

Ellis pushed back a few straggling zombies and started sprinting to Rochelle's aid. On the way, Nick swept past him, reaching her first.

He slowed to a walk and watched the older man help Rochelle to her feet. He said something Ellis couldn't hear as he took her hand, and she giggled in response, grinning wide despite the pain. Ellis's lips tightened and his stomach twitched.

They stared at each other intensely for a moment, then Nick began mending her injuries.

"Y'all need my help?" He asked.

Rochelle simpered and exchanged glances with Nick. "N'aw, I'm fine sweetie," she said.

The group of four continued to traverse the swamp, shooting infected and seeing no sign of rest on the foggy horizon. Coach led the way, Nick and Rochelle tramped side by side behind him, and Ellis tagged along at the back, wondering when they'd start treating him like an adult.


	4. Four

Ears ringing, head pounding, Nick unloaded one last torrent of bullets into the swollen red muscles of the Tank before it fell with a shaking thump.

He took a minute to catch his breath and regain composure.

Then he remembered how far that thing had chucked Ellis.

"SHIT!" He immediately took to running. "ELLIS? ELLIS, WHERE ARE YOU?"

He heard a distant groan and sprinted toward it, expecting the worst.

And the worst was what he found.

He gasped. "Ellis... oh, fuck..."

"Nick," a weak voice replied. "Man... is it bad?"

Was it bad? He'd been turned inside out. The kid was bathing in his own guts, his intestines exposed and tangled.

Nick swallowed and knelt down. He contemplated reaching for his health kit, but he knew the boy's wounds were beyond repair.

"Ellis ..." he sighed. "Yeah, it's pretty bad."

Ellis closed his eyes. "It feels bad," he said. He coughed up a wad of mucus and blood, and Nick wiped it away before it could drizzle onto the dirt. Another stain on his suit - but he didn't care.

"Nick?" Ellis wheezed. He opened his blue eyes and looked up at the older man.

Nick nodded.

As Ellis gathered the last of his strength to say what was on his mind, all life suddenly drained from his face.

* * *

"Hey."

Coach tossed a granola bar into Nick's lap, taking a seat beside him.

"Eat up, you look as pale as a ghost."

Nick said nothing, continuing to stare at the opposite wall of the safe room. Coach took a bite out of his own granola bar, sighing and shaking his head.

"Nick?" he asked.

No answer.

"Man, Nick… I'm sorry..." he said. "Can't have been easy, bein' the one to watch him... go like that..." He sighed again. "Lord… he was just a kid…"

"No he wasn't," Nick said suddenly, plainly, still staring at the wall ahead of him.

Coach blinked. "What?"

Nick finally turned to him. "He wasn't just a kid."


	5. Five

From the view on top of the freeway, Ellis could only see a few scattered pockets of wandering infected. He'd picked most of them off before they even noticed him charging their way.

"Boy!" he heard Coach call from far behind him. "Wait for us, y'all gonna get lost!"

Ellis ignored him, jumping off the freeway and onto a tall bus parked underneath it.

He crawled down to the road and was suddenly staring at hundreds of hungry, rotting faces.

Before he had time to curse they were all sprinting toward him, growling and gurgling.

As hundreds of fists began driving him into the ground, he felt something slimy latch onto his ankle. Then he was dragged, quickly, hitting bodies and cars and being pulled and scratched at by a growing number of cold hands. As he was dragged alarms sounded, and more infected swarmed him, and when the dragging finally stopped he wasn't alive to notice.


End file.
